Immigrant acceptance drops in Dayton, but most residents still supportive

But most Daytonians have positive views of immigrants and community perceptions hopefully will continue to improve as people get more opportunities to get to know their neighbors from all over the world, said Jeannette Horwitz, Welcome Dayton coordinator.

“Overall, we’re very happy with the number — 57% is still quite high,” she said. “We think of this as a testament that Welcome Dayton and the city’s efforts are paying off, helping with integration of immigrants and refugees into the city and the larger community.”

Immigration has been a polarizing subject nationwide, especially after months of intense news coverage and political debates about the migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border.

Survey says

About 56.6% of Dayton residents surveyed last fall said they would be supportive if an immigrant household moved in next door, says the 2023 Dayton survey, which was completed by more than 1,300 residents.

The prior year, 62% of residents said they’d be in favor of having immigrants move in next door. Seventy percent of respondents said the same thing in 2021.

It’s worth noting that nearly one-quarter of respondents said they were neutral on this topic.

But about 13% of Daytonians surveyed last year said they disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that they’d support having an immigrant move in next door.

That’s up from 10.5% of residents in 2022 and just 5.4% in 2021.

“We don’t know exactly what’s driving that — that would require more data-digging,” said Jeanette Ghand, senior management analyst with the city of Dayton and project lead for the citywide survey.

The survey results are a snapshot in time and people should not overreact to the findings of any one year, said Robert Heacock, senior project manager with ETC Institute, which conducted the survey.

City staff said the 2024 survey, which will be conducted later this year, should help determine if what Dayton is seeing is a longer-term decline in immigrant acceptance or maybe just a return to normal, pre-COVID attitudes.

Between 2017 and 2019, 56.4% to 58% of Daytonians said they’d approve of having immigrants move in next door.

A friendly place

The city of Dayton has prided itself on being a welcoming place for immigrants and refugees since 2011, when the Welcome Dayton initiative launched.

The community initiative rolled out the red carpet for immigrants and refugees.

Community leaders back then said making Dayton immigrant-friendly could help stem decades of population loss by attracting new people to the city. They also said it was the right thing to do and creating a more diverse community would benefit everyone.

Horwitz, the Welcome Dayton coordinator, said she constantly gets phone calls from residents who want to know how they can get involved with immigrant and refugee welcoming work through volunteering and community activities.

She said people usually develop positive opinions of their foreign-born neighbors and fellow community members when they get to know them.

Foreign-born residents contribute to the local economy and community in many ways, Horwitz said.

Immigrants are more likely to start a new business than U.S.-born residents, and many open restaurants and shops that help revitalize neighborhoods and business districts. Some immigrants come to the United States as students and decide to stay after they find work and put down roots.

Immigrants bring valuable skills to their communities, and they often help grow the labor force and fill job openings that might otherwise remain vacant, supporters say.

Bill Kennedy, who lives in Dayton’s South Park neighborhood, has a sign in the front window of his home that says in multiple languages, “No matter where you’re from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor.”

Kennedy said diversity strengthens and stabilizes neighborhoods and South Park is very welcoming and residents really appreciate their neighbors who come from all over.

“I’m really supportive of immigrants,” he said. “We need more people, especially a city like Dayton, where we’ve lost a lot of population over the last 60 years.”

The numbers

Census data suggest that about 5% of Dayton’s residents are foreign-born, or roughly about 6,650 people. About 6% of Ohio’s population is foreign born.

Horwitz and some community leaders believe the Census estimates are likely undercounts and possibly around 10% of Dayton residents could be immigrants.

Immigration continues to a hot topic nationally, and a great deal of attention has been given to the record levels of migrant crossings at the southern border.

Gallup says its polls have found that more Americans have grown anxious about immigration in the past year, even though most people think “legal immigration” is a good thing. Gallup earlier this year said its polls for the first time ever found that Americans said immigration was the top concern facing the nation.

Some politicians have said that the U.S. needs to do a lot more to secure its southern border and have called for new immigration policies or an overhaul of the system.

Kathleen Kersh, a member of the Welcome Dayton Committee, said she believes people are receiving a lot of negative, anti-immigrant rhetoric in the news and from politicians regarding the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I think the national narrative on immigration is likely to blame for this trend” seen in the Dayton survey, she said. “Our local leadership has welcomed immigrant communities, and we have many local organizations working hard to integrate immigrant and receiving communities.”

National anti-immigrant rhetoric dehumanizes people coming from other countries and fails to recognize the violence and horrible conditions migrants are fleeing in search of a safe and better life, she said.

Kate Conway, a Welcome Dayton Committee member, said it’s very fortunate that Dayton is a welcoming place.

“In today’s media and political sound-bite and polarizing buzzword wars, the actual real information and lived experiences of a healthy and diverse community that is accessible and inclusive of all its residents can get lost in all the noise,” she said.

The Welcome Dayton Committee has been trying to expand welcoming efforts to the entire Montgomery County community, said Rachel Gut, another committee member.

“We are holding several forums/listening sessions this year that bring both new Americans and the receiving community together to discuss how they can best support each other and be the neighbors, friends and community that will continue to build our cities and make the whole region stronger,” she said.

Welcome Dayton’s next countywide listening session will take place at the Huber Heights Dayton Metro Library on April 23.

The Dayton citywide survey also found that higher-income residents were much more likely to be accepting of immigrant neighbors than lower-earning Daytonians. Roughly three-fourths of Dayton residents between the ages of 18 to 34 said they would approve of immigrant households moving in next door, compared to less than 55% of older community members.